Brachionidium pusillum Ames & C.Schweinf. 1930
Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Jany Renz Herbaria Website
TYPE Drawing by © Ames & Schweinfurth and The Epidendra Orchid Website
Common Name or Meaning The Small Brachionidium [refers to the plants size]
Flower Size .6" [1.5 cm]
Found in Costa Rica and Panama in moss in cloud forests at elevations of 1100 to 2000 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cool growing epiphtye with a slender, occasionally branching rhizome enveloped by 3, shortly mucronate sheaths and giving rise to suberect ramicauls enveloped by 2 similar sheaths and carrying a single, apical, suberect, coriaceous, elliptical, obtuse, bidentate, apiculate, 5 veined, cuneate below into the petiolate base leaf that blooms in the winter through early summer on a slender, erect, arising from near the apex of the ramicaul with a loose, bract below the middle and another at the base, .24 to .32" [6 to 8 mm] long, single flowered inflorescence with an infundibular, acute, as long as the ovary floral bract and carrying a translucent pale yellow, resupinate flower.
"Closely related to Brachionidium minusculum but distinguished by the smaller leaves spaced farther apart on the rhixome, glabrous petals and a much smaller lip with shortly falcate lateral angles." Luer 1995
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Icones Pleurothallidinarum Vol XXVI pg 233 Luer 2004 Manual De Plantas de Costa Rica Volumen III Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003;
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